1. Field
Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to dynamically selecting among a plurality of available secondary serving cells for a user equipment capable of receiving multiple serving cells in more than one technology.
2. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance UMTS technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications. For example, recent releases of 3GPP standards include Dual Cell (DC)-HSDPA, wherein a UE may receive dual transport blocks in different 5-MHz carriers (in the same band or in different bands) transmitted by the same Node B. In addition, more recent advances undergoing ongoing development within 3GPP include single-frequency, dual cell (SFDC)-HSDPA, wherein the UE may receive dual transport blocks from different sectors (transmitted by the same Node B or by disparate Node Bs) in downlink transmissions utilizing the same carrier frequency. With these and other paradigms including dual-frequency dual-cell HSDPA, which is similar to DC-HSDPA except that the dual transport blocks in different carriers may be transmitted by disparate Node Bs, there may arise scenarios where a particular UE configured for many or even all of these functionalities may benefit from selecting between the various technologies in accordance with any number of factors.